A Well Ordered Life

I am a person who likes his clothes scattered about the floor, his hair unkempt, and his work piled up all over his desk. In other words order and organization do not come naturally to me. Chaos can often comfort me, aide in my creativity. However it also has downsides it is a distraction to my productivity, it feeds distraction rather than focus, and it clutters up my bid’ness. Because of the latter reasons, I’ve been working on creating a well ordered life. While I’m still musing on how to apply this principle to my life as a whole, I’ve begun applying it to different pockets of my life. I began by pairing down my sentimental/photo/junk items. Growing up we moved around a lot, and as a result I have an odd habit of holding onto random objects or pictures that remind me of the past. Now I’m not saying it’s bad to have keepsakes and the like, but it’s also not ok to be a pack rat. Eventually the time comes when I started to wonder why I’m moving these boxes around with me that I rarely open, and what’s inside them. I open them to discover old hobbies, significant memorabilia, and junk that might have held some significance in the past but now is just adding poundage to the overall weight of the items I own. Facing the pile of junk and memorabilia I did a good job getting rid of things so that I won’t have to open the boxes and start throwing things away again. When in doubt throw it out. Keep only what is really significant. So I did a lot of throwing away, in that department, it felt pretty good in fact. Later on I’ll have to go back and give order to all the old photos, and memorabilia, but for now its a step in the right direction. The next area I have been adding order to is my library. In particular I have been cataloging my books in an attempt to both get a feel for all that I have, and to allow me to easily find what I’m looking for. In order to expedite the process I purchased program called Delicious Library. It is a mac program which is free to try (up to 25 items I think) check it out here. Basically it allows you to catalogue & sort your library digitally, either by scanning, entering the ISBN, or searching for you book. Although I’m using it for my library you can use it for other items such as cds, dvds, and pretty much anything with a barcode that is on amazon. It even allows you to check out items to people so you can remember who forgot to return Little Women to you. I’m not finished with the book project as I’m still working on sorting out some categories, should I create a category for my favorite authors or put their books in the categories which they address? These are the problems that plague me and keep me up at night… Not really I sleep like a baby… with clothes scattered about the floor.

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Being Present

We are living in a generation that records life instead of experiencing it. As if an entire film crew were only cameramen with no actors to push the plot forward. Technology seems to be providing us with more and more opportunities to be absent. Where ever we are or whatever we are doing, the temptation is to be somewhere else, talking to someone else. I have to make a conscious decision not to answer my phone or check my texts when having a serious conversation with someone. The question is why? Why should we ignore present company to talk to people elsewhere? Is it envy? The idea that no matter where we are there is someplace better we could be looking or thinking about. The idea that there is someone more interesting or likable than the person in front of me that I could be talking with instead. Are we addicted to stimulation? We have to have some sort of constant interaction, a piece of new information, a new message. I’m not sure exactly why we are displaying these new types of behavior, but the one thing I’m sure of is that it takes us out of the present. Perhaps we are more comfortable dealing with the past so we are recording the present for enjoyment later. Or maybe we are uncomfortable in the present. We become nervous and stressed when we are actually wholly physically, mentally, and emotionally in this particular place and time. In the present moment you are forced to endure whatever exists, as it exists. In many ways you are exposed, people see how you are… not how you portray yourself. The real world can’t be ignored, turned off, reloaded, downvoted, hidden from our feed, or opened in another tab. Being present forces us to be aware of both ourselves and our surroundings as they exist. Technology has opened up a new frontier for us. The frontier of the present reality. The opportunity to explore our physical surroundings and the people around us. This area is left bare, completely untouched, as most people are not present, but absent. 

Stop looking at your screen. Look around you. Explore. Interact. Be Present

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I’ll Be Back

This is just to announce that I am going to start attempting to increase my output. That means starting to blog again. I’ve also noticed they’ve changed my theme since I was last here. It looks pretty crappy, I’ll have to update it. So I know this is a short post but… I’ll be back. 

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